If you’re thinking “Well, it can’t be worse than the film version of Johnny Mnemonic,” let me tell you this: Oh yes, it can be worse. Much worse.
It’s an annual tradition here on The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century: the Gathering of the Juggalos infomercial! If you’re a fan of Insane Clown Posse and live the juggalo lifestyle (or just want to immerse yourself in it for a few Faygo-drenched days), you’re already making plans to spend August 8th through 12th at Cave-In-Rock, Illinois. For the past few years, Psychopathic Records (ICP’s label and the people behind the Gathering) have put together a long-form informercial — typically 20-ish minutes in length — that tells you what’ll happen, who’ll appear and that “it’s gonna be awesome, bitch!”
Alas, unlike last year’s infomercial, this one doesn’t have Vanilla Ice. This year’s infomercial’s theme is “zombie apocalypse”.
The most notable change to this year’s schedule is that ICP will perform their headlining set on Saturday, August 11th instead of their traditional Sunday night slot. Shaggy 2 Dope explained that the rescheduling was for the benefit of productive juggalos: “this gives Juggalos and even curious spectators a chance to see us and then pack up and leave Sunday if they have to get back to work on Monday, y’know?”
Book your ticket now — the freshness awaits you!
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Meanwhile, in France…
Don’t be shocked. That’s just what they call “continental breakfast” over there.
After a crazy couple of weeks of flying home from Manila, then to Tampa for a wedding, then to San Francisco to see about some job opportunities, then back to Tampa, it was time for a little fun. So that Saturday, we went to the Giraffe Ranch Farm, located a few miles away from Dade City.
In addition to giraffes, the Giraffe Ranch Farm has a number of other animals who feel at home in areas similar to African grasslands. One such animal is the camel, and they offer camel rides.
It turns out that camels, when treated well, absolutely love humans. The camels at the ranch love greeting visitors and almost beg to be petted.
The ranch offers a couple of camel rides: a ten-minute ride, where you do a quick tour of their large “front yard”, or a much longer ride, where you take the grand tour of the ranch on camelback. Since that’s considerably pricier and the sun was blazing that day, we opted for the ten-minute ride, preferring to do the tour in their covered open-air bus.
Here we are, about to start our camel ride.
Here’s Anitra after the ride, petting the camel she rode. His name is “Doofus”.
They make it simple to hop on a camel for a ride: you climb a set of stairs onto a raised platform, which makes it easy to board them.
After the camel ride, we were given a short presentation about the animals on the ranch. They passed around a number of bones and horns from the various types of animals there, and I couldn’t resist playing with them.
I think I found this year’s Halloween costume idea.
For a little extra money, you can go inside the lemur cage and feed them grapes. There was no way that we’d pass up this opportunity.
The lemurs are more than happy to hobnob with humans. They’re a lot like the way they’re depicted in the Madagascar films, minus the I Like to Move IT musical number and Sasha Baron Cohen’s fake South Asian accent.
You can feed them either by holding out a grape, which they’ll take with their teeny hands, or pop it in their mouth. They’re pretty gentle either way.
Here’s a lemur taking a grape from my hand.
One of them decided to get a closer look at my leg…
…while another preferred Anitra’s.
There’s a matriarchal social order to lemur society, and it showed in the way they lined up to be fed.
We were told not to choose which lemur to feed, but rather to let them work it out. It seemed to work out pretty well, and even the babies got to have some grapes.
While posing for pictures with the lemurs in the background, a few of them got pretty friendly…
…and a couple of them even climbed on me. They didn’t have claws like cats; their hands feel more like those of a tiny baby human’s.
Here we are, looking contemplative.
And here were are, best of buds, having a grand ol’ time.
Next: More scenes from the Giraffe Ranch!
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Meanwhile, in Russia…
“One of them’s a horse. The other’s a dog. Together, they fight crime. In Russia.”
Tuesday, July 3rd and Wednesday, July 4th: Fly from Manila to Hong Kong, then Hong Kong to Toronto.
Thursday, July 5th: A day to get re-adjusted to Eastern Daylight Time and do laundry, because…
Friday, July 6th: Hop on another plane, this one bound for Tampa. Thankfully, my NEXUS card means I clear customs in seconds and all those miles I racked with Air Canada means I get to chill out and get some breakfast in the lounge.
I land around noon and meet Anitra, take her out for lunch and then take a quick nap before I watch the wedding rehearsal (she was a bridesmaid) and attend the rehearsal dinner.
Saturday, July 7th: The wedding! Anitra’s a beautiful bridesmaid, and I’m doing my best not to look too jet-laggy.
Uh-oh — she caught the bouquet.
Luckily, I went to Crazy Go Nuts University, where you learn that most important of coping techniques, pictured above.
Sunday, July 8th: One day of downtime…
Monday, July 9th: …and then it’s off to another plane, this time bound for San Francisco, the destination of my secret (well, not anymore) side trip. That’s three time zones in a week: UTC+8, UTC-4, and now UTC-7.
Tuesday, July 10: Dressed up nicely to met with one or more prospective employers.
Wednesday, July 11th: Lunch with more prospective employers.
Thursday, July 12th: More dressing up nicely for more prospective employers, this time in “The City”.
I stayed with my cousins, who lent me a car to get into town. I have got to get me one of these.
I took this after another lunch with a different set of prospective employers.
That night, I had a lovely dinner — shabu-shabu — with some Toronto friends who’ve recently moved out west, namely Tom Purves, Michele Perras and Adam Schwabe. Great seeing you guys!
Friday, July 13th: A 6:00 a.m. flight back to Tampa. I wasn’t thrilled about the departure time…
…but luck was with me. Not only did I get put in an emergency exit row (extra legroom), but I got the row all to myself! I arrived in Tampa in the late afternoon to take Anitra out to dinner. The next day…
Saturday, July 14th: …well, that’s another blog post.